ELDERLY people in Coventry will have to pay up to 75 per cent more for home care services after the council’s cabinet approved controversial proposals to hike up charges.

At a meeting held yesterday, councillors agreed to increase charges for services including meals on wheels, domiciliary care and transport to day centres.

It means home meals will go up from £2.88 to £4.10 a meal while home care goes from £10.38 to £14.48 an hour and transport increases from £1.71 to £3 per return journey.

Opposition councillors spoke out against the proposals at the meeting in the council house yesterday.

They criticised the consultation process carried out between January and March with members of the public because the increased costs were already included as part of the council budget passed in February.

Coun George Duggins, deputy leader of the Labour party, said the decision to include the increases in the budget before the consultation left the council little room to manoeuvre.

“This is a massive increase. It is not surprising that the consultation comes out as being wholly against the rise,” he said.

“No service user has favoured such a steep increase. Those views have not been taken on board. I think these are swingeing increases and I would ask the cabinet to think about them again.”

He added: “This represents bad news for those constituents who rely on these services.”

Coun Ken Taylor, leader of the Conservative-run council, said the current cabinet would not have had to make such a dramatic increase if previous ruling parties had made smaller increases earlier.

He added the costs to service users were a maximum of half the amount paid for the service by the council.

The measures will provide a saving of £530,000 for the council.

Speaking after the meeting, Don Newman, vice-chairman of the Coventry Older People’s Forum, said he was concerned by the decision.

“This won’t affect everyone but there are certain groups of people in Coventry who I’m very concerned about,” he said.